1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to railroad cars. In particular, the present invention relates to ballast discharge cars for distributing ballast along railways.
2. Description of Related Art
There are many different types of ballast discharge cars in the railroad industry. Some are designed for low speed applications, such as air dump cars, and others are designed for high speed applications. Most are very complicated, involving many different moving parts, multiple conveyors, and even multiple railcars. Many of these ballast discharge cars are, in fact, ballast collection and cleaning cars that undercut the ballast, convey it up into shaker assemblies, and then redistribute it back down onto the railway.
Only a few ballast discharge cars include simple mechanisms for discharging ballast outside of the rails. These cars typically employ a conveyor mounted beneath a hopper that pivots out into a position in which the end of the conveyor is located well beyond the side of the railcar. This type of arrangement is undesirable because the extended conveyor can either damage or be damaged by obstacles near the railway.
One main shortcoming of conventional ballast discharge cars is that they are designed to only distribute ballast either between the rails or only a short distance outside of the rails. These conventional ballast discharge cars are not designed to distribute the ballast very far outside of the rails, and they are not designed to stockpile the ballast far beyond the outside of the rails.
Although there have been many developments in the area of ballast discharge cars, many shortcomings remain.